A road trip, completed guild challenge and the Piping Hotties

Sue came with me on my road trip to The Sinnissippi Quilters Guild last Thursday. We sold tickets for the RWQG’s opportunity quilt, “Bloom where you are planted”. We tried our hardest and between the afternoon and evening meetings sold $75 worth of tickets… It seems quilters realize it only takes one ticket to win… but did anyone buy the right ticket?

Here is Sue posed rather regally next to the quilt,

Wendy Butler Berns was speaking at both meetings. She had 2 different programs. It’s been a while since she was in Naperville and it was good to see what she’s been up to since then.

In between sessions we had dinner with Julia and Matt. They are very good hosts. I don’t know if they cleared up specially for us. I wish I kept our home as organized, maybe I will when I grow up…

I had put my guild challenge piece on hold while I worked on the class samples so it was time to return to my project. The deadline was yesterday and I duly handed it over last night.

I made a recycling bin in line with the theme of “Going green – recycle, repurpose, reuse”. Stephanie had come up with the idea but decided she wasn’t going to run with it so I couldn’t resist. It seemed like to good an idea to be wasted. 

I like making 3-dimensional pieces and this was a fun one. I worked out the dimensions for my bin and then started on the sides. I used pieces from my batik scrap bag arranged on a foundation of Fast2Fuse and quilted closely in a wavy grid design. 

I made four panels which I then decorated with some perle cotton bobbin work spirals before adding a “go green” lining fabric, which was actually a bandana from the “Dollar Spot” at Target. The base just had the challenge fabric on one side and the bandana on the other. 

Once all the panels were made I trimmed them to size and added some broderie perse style fused butterflies left over from a previous project and a recycling logo which I further embellished with glued on mini-beads. Then I satin stitched around all the pieces to finish the edges. I sewed on some more butterflies which had been fused to fabric to make them 3-d and added beads down the bodies – just to make them more interesting.

Then it was time to assemble the bin… I thought I was going to hand stitch it together but that proved to be very tedious so I just went for it and machine zig-zagged along the seams. Even though Fast2Fuse is good and sturdy it is surprisingly flexible  under the machine and I was very happy with the way it went together.

The bin still seemed to be missing something so I added some twisted fibers around the top. I did sew these on by hand so that they stayed nice and fuzzy. 

And that was it! Here is the finished article from one side…

and another,

and a close up of the re-cycling logo,

It’s called “One Fancy Recycling Bin” because that’s what it is. It’ll be a prettier receptacle than the plastic bag I keep my batik scraps in at the moment.

Now we’ll have to wait and see if the viewers like it at the Gathering.

Ami Simms is our featured speaker for the Gathering in March so we have been making Priority Quilts for the Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative. Along the way to making the bin I wanted to try out some of the techniques so I made a little quilt called “Unravelling” which will be donated to be sold later in the year. 

I actually free motion quilted the background on this one before I realised it would be a whole lot quicker using the even feed setting and an open toed foot on my Pfaff. I used a heavier weight yarn for the spirals and couched them down from the front which became bobbin work on the bin. That meant I could make some markings and be a little less random, although random can be good…

It will be interesting to see what it raises for the cause.

Susan Cleveland was our speaker last night at Riverwalk Quilters. She was one lively and entertaining speaker. She was quick to respond to comments from the floor which made for a hilarious evening.

She had a good set up with a live video feed so we could see her quilts “in person”, and close up without a Power Point presentation. I liked it better than having a slide show and then seeing the quilts.

Susan pays attention to details and has some great techniques to achieve her flawless results so I was glad that I’d signed up for her workshop.

Today I became a “Piping Hotty”…? (Not my term) Susan taught her Piping Hot Macaroni class from her book, Piping Hot Curves. She had her video camera set up again and some interesting visual aids.

That’s a laminated picture of an iron to show us where to press. The instructions were great. With all the tips she gave us even I managed to sew accurately and here are my four finished “Macaroni” blocks,

Not exactly a finished quilt but a good start. I can see more blocks going together quickly in my future…

I want to try putting piping in the borders too. There’s a different book for that one, complete with a “Groovin’ Piping Trimming Tool. Sounds like I need one.

One last picture of Susan showing us her quilts…

I certainly came home with lots of ideas… Only time will tell.